Lebanese Political Divisions Deepen After Bombing: Reuters

[Hissyspit]

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7950892

Lebanese Political Divisions Deepen After Bombing
Sat Mar 19, 2005 2:15 PM ET

By Lin Noueihed

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's anti-Syrian opposition dismissed the president's call for talks on Saturday, deepening political divisions hours after a bomb raised fresh fears of a return to the country's violent past.

Investigators sifted through the rubble left by the blast, which wounded 11 people and gutted the ground and first floors of a residential block in a Christian suburb of eastern Beirut.

- snip -

Opposition figures who met on Saturday held Syrian-backed security agencies responsible for the bombing and were unimpressed with pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud's first personal bid to break the deadlock over Syria's influence in its tiny neighbor.

"We warn Syria not to let these midgets carry out security actions in the country. The security agencies belong to it (Syria). There is no other explanation," Druze chieftain and key opposition leader Walid Jumblatt told reporters. "Lahoud today invites us to dialogue as though he is an independent when he is accused."

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[Robbien]

1. Lebanon was a peaceful country before the US turned its attention

to it. Was it not?

[Colorado Blue]

2. Not really. Don't forget the Syrian army was sitting on it

and there are several armed militias in place. In fact Syria still has troops there. Can we consider that peace, exactly?

However, the fact that people did turn out in the hundreds of thousands to express themselves recently - and it was 100% peaceful - is an excellent sign.

Religious and ethnic divisions are many. The civil war 1975-1990 was all about that, about splits between Muslim groups and between Muslims and Christians.

Hopefully, people will find ways to talk to each other and not use bombs and guns to express their differences. This damn bombing is an abomination; I hope people stay cool.

Thanks for the post!

[4dsc]

3. What??

I was informed back in the early 1980's that the war in Lebanon was not a fight between Christians and Muslims but rather a economy one, poor versus the rich.. I do not buy that the war was a religious one, as protraited by the US media..

[Colorado Blue]

6. Oh - I'm sure you're right! Rich and poor and competing

socio-economic philosophies were most certainly a factor in the war.

However, the underlying religious and ethnic factors were the primary stressors. Here's a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_Ware

The situation was made even more complex by the "help" proferred by several Arab states, Israel, the US, the Soviet Union, Iran via the Shi'a, the fundamentalist Islamic movement, the PLO - whose entrance into Lebanon sparked Israel's entrance into the war - and the eventual rise of private armies. At one point I think some 81 private armies were involved, each with an Opinion.

Your point, however, is interesting in that it illuminates the social and economic differences between the Christians, for example, and the rural Muslims - primarily the Shi'a to the east and south. The Christians had been the majority and were the de facto ruling class but the demographics had shifted and the Muslims felt themselves underrepresented. There was a highly sophisticated and cosmopolitan culture in Beirut and a rural culture surrounding it - also a factor.

But economics aside, differences in religious outlook can't be underestimated, I think. The rise of fundamentalist Islam, which started back in the 1930's, I believe, as a reaction against the influence of Europe and western culture, exacerbated an already complex social fabric. Also the simple stress of building a modern nation out of the fabric of the Ottoman Empire, then the French mandate, played a role.

What do you think?

[jmcgowanjm]

4. #1-the US invited Syria in after the Hezbollah gained the upper ground

Here's the history:
#2 Israel is on the southern border

1975  In April, civil war erupted again in Lebanon (see also
1958) when Christian members of the "Phalange" militia
in Lebanon ambushed a bus carrying Palestinians from
the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla (see below) to the
Tel al-Zataar refugee camp (see massacre at Tel al-
Zataar) killing 30 people.

The PLO retaliated.

Lebanon's Christians had grown steadily uneasy
with challenges to their political supremacy (based on the
1943 National Pact) coming from Lebanon's Sunni, Shia,
and Druze
populations.

In July, 1976, the Syrian army entered Lebanon and imposed
a ceasefire. Syria involved itself initially to protect Christians
from defeat at the hands of the
Muslims.

On March 15, 1978, Israel moved in as far as the Litani River
and occupied a ten kilometer (six mile) wide corridor north of
its border with Lebanon. About 1,500 Lebanese and
Palestinian civilians were killed in the operation. Some
Israeli forces were withdrawn, but not before the area
was handed over to Israeli allied Christian militiamen
opposed to the Palestinians and to other Arab
Muslim Lebanese.

And then:

Israeli reprisals (spring, 1981)

Ceasefire (July, 1981)

End ceasefire (April, 1982)

Christian militia involvement in Hama, Syria (1982)

Israel invades (1982)

Origins Hizbullah (1982)

Massacres at Sabra and Shatilla (Sept., 1982)

Seeds of Intifada (1983)

U.S. embassy bombed (April, 1983)

Shia-Christian fighting and U.S. intervention (summer, fall, 1983)

From Kerr assassination through Marine barracks bombing (1984)

Israeli pullback (1985)

Fighting (spring, 1985)

Shia-PLO conflict (1987)

General Aoun appointed (Sept., 1988)

Druze shelling of Beirut (1989)

Christian-Muslim fighting (August, 1989)

Ceasefire (September 22, 1989)

Taif Accord (October 1,1989).

http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/civil_war_in_lebanon.htm

[jmcgowanjm]

5. A lingering problem Taif did not resolve was the role Syria would play

And to see how alliances in the ME
are as stable as the desert sands:

Aoun was given aid by Iraq's Saddam Hussein who sought
ways to weaken his rival Hafez al-Asad of Syria.  The
fighting dragged on until October, 1990 when Aoun was
finally driven into exile in France.  

Programs, get your programs, you can't tell the players w/o
a program!

[Colorado Blue]

7. Thank you. nt

[jmcgowanjm]

8. No problem, Colorado Blue, I needed the refresher course

I'm sure we'll be hearing more from Lebanon
in the near future.

If, for nothing else, it has a surplus of fresh water.